Like Don Meredith used to sing at the end of Monday Night Football games, “turn out the lights, the party’s over.” After more than six years on air, Mark Snyder decided to pull the plug on his popular local access cable program, Snyder’s Stoughton.

Snyder said that the employees of SMAC were "not doing their jobs assisting volunteers," and that he could "no longer work under those conditions."

Snyder, the host of the Snyder's Stoughton television program and the Stoughton Patch About Town columnist, recorded his last television show last Wednesday at the Stoughton Media Access Corporation (SMAC) studios on Page Street.

The show was the top-rated cable access program in Stoughton, topping an independent survey filled out by more than 500 people.

“I'm a 40-year media professional, who had no problems for over six years in two other studios,” Snyder said. “It was the two employees of SMAC, failing to do their jobs to a professional level, that made me quit.  If I couldn't put out a professional project with my crew, without all of us having some fun and sense of accomplishment, I didn't want to do it anymore.”

SMAC recently opened its new studios on Page Street after leasing space at the Easton Community Television offices.

“It’s not good that we have someone who wasn’t happy and they’re stopping a show. We wish Mark wasn’t doing that, but we can’t change his mind,” John Stagnone, President of SMAC said. “Other people seem to be more than satisfied. We have some good responses from the new shows that are coming in.”

Volunteers on Snyder’s Stoughton described an unfavorable working environment for the volunteers, said they were not adequately trained and took exception to having to pay a $30 fee to volunteer.

“It’s awful. The atmosphere there is extremely oppositional. It’s hostile, it’s cold, it’s unwelcoming,” said Cindy Pazyra, who directed Synder’s Stoughton. “We get no help, we get no assistance. We’ve basically been left to our own devices. We have not been trained properly.”

“They’ve done everything possible to make things difficult and I’m not sure the Board of Directors is in touch with what’s going on,” Dori Frankel, a camera operator for Snyder’s Stoughton, added.

“The fact of the matter is they haven’t had any training for anybody nor are they really able to train us because they don’t know the equipment as well as they should,” Frankel said. “So it’s kind of the blind leading the blind, which is not exactly how we anticipated it would run. That to me is a problem.”

She also expressed concern that a show, produced by SMAC employees, recently aired and contained inappropriate language.

Stagnone said that “we have never charged anybody a fee,” but SMAC is looking into becoming a membership organization and is still in the process of deciding.

He also said the opportunity is there to receive training.

Since these interviews were conducted last week, SMAC sent out an email advertising training sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays in May and June on topics ranging from studio and control room production, to broadcast pix, to editing and field production.

The email also said “as always, we are available to train one on one sessions during the day time as our schedule permits.”

For Pazyra, the problem is not the facility itself, but rather SMAC’s atmosphere.

“The facility there is beautiful, they have everything there that anybody would need to produce a fabulous show,” she said. “The physical premises is outstanding, the equipment, everything is fantastic. [But], we are not getting any help.”

Stagnone said SMAC’s open house on Saturday, March 26 was a success and there has been an interest to produce new programming. There are already two new shows starting up.

“We’ve only been open a few weeks and we’re still trying to sort out the bugs,” Stagnone said. “When everything is brand new, there’s a time period you have to expect some things not to be working perfectly.”

Snyder indicated offering the training sessions was a step in the right direction, and signed up for a class, but has not changed his mind about the fate of his show.

Watch the entirety of Snyder's sign-off statement from the April 13 taping of his show in the media gallery above.